One of the books that saw me traverse from Left to Right was Myrna Blyth’s Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness — and Liberalism — to the Women of America, which exposed the profound Leftist tilt of decidedly non-political magazines. Until reading that, I’d never thought about the politics being slipped in between doses of fashion, make-up, and dating advice. These magazines, probably more than any other type of publication in America, shape women’s political and social attitudes. They’re pro-unlimited abortion, pro-union, pro-Big Government, pro-promiscuity, sympathetic to illegal, rather than legal, aliens, and generally pro a whole bunch of other things that don’t align well with conservative values, national security, American economic health, etc.

I’ve talked before at this blog about the way that conservatives cannot win the political debate until they first turn the culture around. Consistent with Andrew Breitbart’s teachings, I’ve thought in terms of television, movie, and news shows. But Glenn Reynolds says that we ought to be looking at the even softer underbelly of women’s magazines:

Mitt Romney and the GOP lost, but it wasn’t for lack of money. They spent a lot; they just didn’t get enough bang for the buck.

One of the groups with whom Romney did worst was female “low-information voters.” Those are women who don’t really follow politics, and vote based on a vague sense of who’s mean and who’s nice, who’s cool and who’s uncool.

Since, by definition, they don’t pay much attention to political news, they get this sense from what they do read. And for many, that’s traditional women’s magazines — Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, the Ladies Home Journal, etc. — and the newer women’s sites like YourTango, The Frisky, Yahoo! Shine, and the like.

The thing is, those magazines and Web sites see themselves, pretty consciously, as a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. So while nine out of 10 articles may be the usual stuff on sex, diet and shopping, the 10th will always be either soft p.r. for the Democrats or soft — or sometimes not-so-soft — hits on Republicans.

Please read the rest here. It’s eye-opening. Then, write to any billionaires you know and tell them it’s time to get into the fashion and publishing business.

In a sane world, the editor of Vogue Magazine, a publication ostensibly devoted to women’s clothing, wouldn’t be such a political figure that she is being bandied about as the probable U.S. Ambassador to England. Anna Wintour turned her magazine and her cachet into a Democrat get-out-the-vote machine. She probably deserves the reward Obama is sending her way, but that doesn’t mean we have to sit back and accept the status quo.